The nickname 'Moody Mile' began 40 years ago with Wes Moody's fast lap

The track at the state fairgrounds goes by “The Mile” or sometimes “The Moody Mile.”

So is the place bipolar or just a little unpredictable?

Actually, neither. The nickname was born in 1970 -- two years before the first Super DIRT Week -- when a driver named Wesley Moody became the first to average 100 mph for a lap on the track.

It’s been known as the Moody Mile ever since.

Moody, now the owner of a two-car modified team, is from Saranac Lake and grew up racing at Fonda and Plattsburgh and in Canada.

He routinely ran at Syracuse on Labor Day, at the end of the state fair, and on this particular day 40 years ago “all the stars were aligned and we were very fast,” he said.

“We used to get beat a lot by a guy named Will Cagle and we kind of kicked everybody’s butt that day. My dad (also Wesley) was going around hollering, ‘The Moody mile! The Moody mile!’

“He was pretty proud because we beat Cagle, too. Cagle and (Kenny) Brightbill and (Dick) Tobias. All those tough guys. That was a pretty good deal for somebody from Saranac Lake.”

He said the record held up for three or four years, “so it was a pretty good lick. ... That’s how it got started. The Moody Mile.”

The record-setting car was a 1936 Chevy coupe with a 454-cubic-inch engine. The current record was set in a sprint car in 1994, when Billy Pauch averaged 144.950 mph for a lap. Billy Decker holds the modified record of 126.993 set in 2004.

Moody said he never bragged about the record. “We never said anything about it or tried to blow any smoke about anybody. We’re just the kind of people that we don’t do that.”

Moody’s last race at Super DIRT Week was in 1983. Did he have any luck?

“No, no, no. We’d always get in (the race), but it’s a tough place. Guys like Cagle never won here, and there’s a guy that’s won, what, 1,500 features in his lifetime and never won here.”

This week, Moody is fielding two small-block modifieds. His stepson, Patrick Dupree, drives one, and Mike Perrotte drives the other.

“Most of the local guys know what the deal is (with the Moody Mile),” he said. “But of course all the new racers that come along, they don’t know who I am.”